27 December 2014

This is the biggest leftover fest of the year; something
that I and other food writers always bang on about just after Christmas but, you
know, every little helps especially when it comes to help with eating really
well!

Here are some ideas ...

~ Turkey ~

Firstly remove all the good usable meat from the turkey and
use it in one of the following ways.

~ Toss the leek or
onion in the oil in a soup making sized pan over low heat. Press a butter wrapper or piece of foil
directly on top without burning yourself.
Cover the pan and cook gently till very tender.
~ Peel and thinly slice the potatoes
and add to the pot.
~ Pour over just enough stock to cover
the potatoes, bring to a boil, turn back to a simmer, cover the pot and cook
till tender.
~ Mash the potatoes into the broth or
you could run through the food processor for a smoother finish.
~ Add some cream if you wish.
~ Taste, season and only now add the turkey
scraps to the hot soup just to heat through.

~ Boxing Day
Fritters – roll leftover stuffing into balls, flatten and put a spoonful of
cranberry sauce in the middle, reform the ball enclosing the cranberry sauce
completely. Dip in flour, egg and breadcrumbs and deep fry till hot, crisp and
golden. Eat carefully as the cranberry will be very hot OR, if you’re scared of
hot sauce, form the stuffing into cakes, fry till crisp and serve with
cranberry sauce.

~ Make stuffing
balls or sausage shapes and use instead of real sausages in Toad in the Hole.

~ Add to turkey
pies, sandwiches etc.

Bread Sauce

~ Another thing that is good added to turkey sandwiches.

Bread Sauce Stuffed Mushrooms

Remove the stems from large open mushrooms and brush inside
and out with oil. Fill with the bread sauce, sprinkle with soft fresh
breadcrumbs and bake at 400ºF/200ºC/180C fan/gas 6 for 15-20 minutes till hot
through and the top is crisp and golden. These are extra good drizzled with
balsamic glaze.

~ Bubble and Squeak. In short fry leftover potatoes together with
other leftover veggies in a little oil till hot all through and with a crisp
crust. The secret (not really, you can
tell anyone) to this is to let everything sit for a while over the heat before
disturbing it to allow the crust form. You could add leftover sausage, turkey,
ham, stuffing and/or top with a fried egg.

~ Make an Après
Christmas Pizza with all the leftovers! If you feel cheese is needed then Brie
is probably your best bet.

Christmas Pud

~ Fry thick slices
of leftover Christmas Pudding in butter to reheat luxuriously. Serve with
custard, cream or ice cream or, if it is still the season of goodwill, all
three.

~ Christmas Pudding Sauce – melt a knob of
butter and a spoonful of brown sugar. Stir in crumbled Christmas pudding plus
Brandy or Rum to taste and serve with ice cream

~
A couple of days ago I hit upon the most perfect breakfast
ever – Stollen gently fried in butter and topped, in this case, with thick
brandied cream (although I think other creams such as double or clotted would
work well too).

~
Panettone makes good toast.

There are lots and lots more ideas for almost
every leftover you can think of in "The Leftovers Handbook" which, like a dog, is not
just for Christmas!

21 December 2014

I have just marzipanned our Christmas cake and find I have an
unseemly amount of trimmings, This doesn't faze me one little bit because there
are so many delicious ways to use the leftovers.In case you find yourself in a similar situation
here are my ideas ...

1. Cook’s Treat–
this is your absolute right so feel free to nibble away to your heart’s content.

2. Stuffed Dates–
just remove the stones from dates (if someone hasn’t done it already) and
insert a nugget of marzipan.

3. Balls (excuse me!)

Santa brought these for my real man last year and he loved
them so much I think it will become a tradition. Just roll the leftover
marzipan into balls and dip in melted chocolate. This also produces some cooks
treats during production.

4. Marzipan Sculptures–if you are of an
artistic bent then make marzipan fruits or other “sculptures” and decorate as
appropriate. Here's my pathetic effort - must try harder!

5. Marzipan Sprinkles–bake little pieces
or marzipan in a medium oven, say 180ºC/350°F/160ºC fan/gas 4 ish, until crisp,
they won’t take long, then crumble over things such as ice cream or Affogato.

6. Chewy Marzipan Cookies

To be honest this recipe uses a whole pack of marzipan but
you could either halve the recipe or buy a pack specially to make them –
because they’re worth it.

~ Preheat the oven
to 160ºC/325°F/140ºC fan/gas 3.
~ Line 2 baking trays with greaseproof
or baking parchment and grease lightly.
~ Whisk the egg whites till pretty damn
frothy but not so that you have a meringue situation.
~ Slowly whisk in the sugar, salt and
marzipan speed up and whisk to a soft sticky dough which is as smooth as
poss. You may need to add more sugar or,
if too firm, perhaps a splash of rum; the texture of bought in marzipan seems
to vary quite a lot.
~ Scoop into small balls, roll in icing
sugar to coat and place well-spaced (4cm or so apart) on the baking trays, they
will spread during cooking.
~ Bake for 20-25 minutes till golden
round the edge and cracking on the top.

7. Easy Peasy No
Churn Marzipan Ice Cream

~
Coarsely grate the marzipan and then heat gently with the cream till
melted. Cool to completely cold.
~ Whisk together the marzipanned cream and the liqueur to thick.
~ Fold in the condensed milk plus any inclusions.
~ Freeze.

This recipe comes
from my book Luscious Ice Creams without a Machine, which gives over 100 no-churn ice cream recipes including how to make the cherry ice cream in the ice cream sandwich above.

8. Mince Pies–become
even richer and deliciouser with a little grated or finely chopped marzipan
added to the mincemeat.

9. Delicious
Frangipane Fruit Tart Thingy

To make a deliciously different fruit tart add a layer marzipan.

~ Preheat oven to 200°C/400°F/180ºC fan/gas 6.

~ Roll out the leftover marzipan to size and lay it in the base of the
tart case.

~ Top with your chosen fruit,
sliced peaches are lovely as are pears.

~ Sprinkle with a little sugar and bake for about 20 minutes till the pastry is crisp and brown and the fruit
is tender and starting to caramelise.

10.Proper Frangipane Fruit Tart!

11. Fruit Crumbles

This is my basic crumble mix, which is enough to top about
750g fruit to serve 4 people. Cherries are particularly good for this and
clotted cream with it.

240g plain flour
160g cold butter or margarine
120g sugar

~
Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350°F/160ºC fan/gas 4.

~
Rub together the flour and butter till the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
~ Stir in the sugar (and up to 200g marzipan).
~ Sprinkle the mixture over raw or
cooked fruit in a shallow ovenproof dish.
~ Bake till the fruit is hot (and
cooked if using raw) and the crumble is crisp and golden.
~ Serve hot or cold.

12. MarzipanScones– see here for my very flexible scone recipe and after making the dough gently fold in leftover marzipan cut into small dice.

13. Marzipan Pancakes– my go to pancake recipe is here. Whilst the first side is cooking coarsely grate over some marzipan. This way, when
flipped, it will have a chance to soften and go golden without overdoing it.

9 December 2014

I agree with Baroness Jenkin that “poor people do not know
how to cook”...

... or at least quite a few of them don’t but I’d go further
than the Baroness. I don’t think all rich people know either, nor many of the middling sort of chaps and this is
something I’ve been banging on about for some while.

Several years ago I remember some “fact” in the media stating
that people (it didn't say how rich they were) can’t cook these days because my
generation was the last to learn by watching their mothers do it. I sometimes
watched my Mum and probably picked up a few ideas but for the most part I am self-taught
and I have to say it was a piece of quite easy and I have written
several blog posts on this very subject, such as ...

In an
interview by Marks and Spencer, no less, I was asked what had been the
inspiration behind my blog and writing. I knew the answer
immediately – irritation. I am amazed,
discombobulated and yes, irritated by all the things people don’t know about
food, eating, cooking, best before dates and so on.

I often joke that cooking is just cutting things up and
making them hot. I realise there is a fair bit more to it than that but cooking
really is not at all difficult. I am
not suggesting that everyone should learn to cook like … I dunno … Heston
Blumenthal or Ottolenghi (or me?!) but it would be time very well invested
indeed to learn how to feed yourself quickly, easily, economically, deliciously
and to your very own tastes.

I take on board that, as Jack Monroe points out, some
homes don’t have cooking facilities other than a microwave and do sympathise (very
much) with people in such a situation. If it was me, though, I would put that
microwave through its paces because you actually can cook some pretty good
meals in them. I haven’t written
anything on this but lots of people have, a quick search on Amazon for “microwave cooking” revealed 3,221 results. There’s got to
be some useful info there and, of course, you can get most of these books from
the library so even if you are poor you can afford to read them.

As Baroness Jenkin also said ...

"Life is considerably cheaper if
you are able to cook."

... to which I would add that
it is also considerably more pleasant and more healthy.

In short, if you like
yourself and want to make yourself healthy, happy and maybe a little richer – stop
making excuses and get cooking! (Oops I hope I don’t have to resign after
saying that!)

7 December 2014

Like everyone we are, of course, stocking up food for Christmas and my
real man is, to be frank, going right over the top!He loves Christmas, mainly because of the
food, and he is also a very traditional guy wanting everything his “Mam used to
make”. So we not only have cupboards full of nuts and dates and chocolate and
marzipan and so, and not only is he making his own trifle (he won’t risk my
doing something fancy to it) but Christmas dinner will be, you know, the usual.In detail ...

I, on the other hand, am not a huge meat eater (and turkeys
are made of meat) and like excitement and contrast in my meals so roasting my
veggies is the go for me.

Please pin for easy reference!

Roasting vegetables ...

~ Makes them crisp
and crunchy,
~ Caramelises their juice in a
wonderful way,
~ Intensifies their flavour,
~ Can be seasoned with whatever you
fancy – garlic or spice or whatever,
~ Brightens their colours for a fab
looking meal,
~ Can be cooked alongside the meat so don’t
need much last minute attention.

The Basics

~ In short you
prepare your vegetables, cut them into similar sized pieces, toss with a little olive oil,
season to taste and roast at 200°C/400°F/180ºC fan/gas 6 or thereabouts till
crisp on the outside and tender on the inside.
~ Don’t overcrowd the pan too much –
you need dry heat to crisp the edges, it they are too close together the
vegetables will steam.
~ If you want to speed things up a bit
cover the dish with foil and cook till the veggies are tender and then remove
the foil and perhaps up the heat a little to brown and crispen.

~ Preheat the oven
to 200°C/400°F/180ºC fan/gas 6.
~ Peel the squash, cut in half, discard
the seeds and cut the flesh into large dice – about 25mm/1 inch.
~ Peel the onion and cut into slivers.
~ Toss the squash and onion together
with the olive oil, chilli flakes and sea salt.
~ Spread in a shallow layer in a
roasting pan and cook for 30 minutes till completely tender and the onion is
just starting to char.
~ Stir occasionally during cooking and
if any onions slivers seem to be getting overcooked before the squash is ready
set them aside and stir back in at the end.

Leftovers are great tossed with pasta or as a pizza topping.

Roasted Carrots

This is a particularly good way to cook little Chantenay carrots. Just follow the basic guidelines above.

Click here for some other good ways to use these little darlings, and ...

Honeyed Roasted Parsnips

Same again really but about 10 minutes before they are ready
to serve drizzle in a little honey, roll the parsnips in the sticky juices and
return to the oven for the final few minutes.
Maple syrup works well too here depending on what you are serving them
with.

Or try a mix of your favourite veggies all together, so long
as they are similarly sized and inclined to cook in the same amount of time you
won’t go far wrong. Potatoes, sweet potatoes, red onion and butternut squash is
a pretty and delicious combination.

Root vegetables do roast most marvellous well but so do others veggies, for
instance ...

Brussels Sprouts (and Bacon)

Brussels sprouts often seem to be for display purposes only! Many people want them on the plate at Christmas but then leave them. Roasting helps them to get eaten.

Prepare the sprouts as usual, removing any yellowish leaves, halve or quarter if they are large, toss with olive oil, season and roast at the usual temperature shaking from time to time for about 35 to 40 minutes till tender and crusty. Bacon goes awfully well with these so perhaps fry some bacon strips till crispy (you can do this hours in advance) and toss them with the sprouts for the last 5 minutes of cooking. Black pepper is good too.

Roasted Cauliflower

This was a revelation to me which I posted about here. The
cauliflower was transformed and became sweet, nutty and fascinating.

The first time I tried this I sliced the cauli and it does
look impressive but florets work well this way too.

In Other News ...

I would, of
course, just like to mention my Christmas book!

Catering for
Christmas can be time consuming, tiring and a bit stressy, so I thought I’d
offer some suggestions to make it quicker, easier, more relaxed and perhaps
more impressive!